Rowbothamism

“Rowbothamism” is a term coined by Peter Markley, to help expose the revisionist history of flerfs and distinguish them from ancient flat earthers who believed the sun went under the earth. It is an alternate term for Zeteticism (see below).

Flerfs identify their view with ancient cosmologies. However in reality, when their view began with Samuel Rowbotham in the 1800s, it was completely new and unique in history due to its denial of sunset.

Considering this, when religiflerfs use the term “Biblical cosmology”, it is misinformation.

Pronunciation

Accounts seem to vary (even among UK English speakers) on whether the “TH” in “Rowbotham” is the dental fricative (like in “thin”), or a “T” sound with a silent H.

In a livestream discussion about this, at 2:01:35 Peter Markley and Michael Toon agreed to split the difference by:

• Peter using the “TH” sound like in “thin” and
• Michael using the “T” sound like in “bottom.”

History of the term

History of the term

Date	Event	Link
Jul 2019	In his debut flat earth debunking video, Peter Markley explained the concept but did not yet use the term “Rowbothamism.”	YouTube clip
Dec 2023	Peter used the term once in a debate with Kaleb Davis.	YouTube recording
June 2024	Peter brought significant research to support the term as a main strategy in his MDD debut vs. Flatzoid. Flatzoid’s illogical response resulted in a meme.	YouTube live

Rowbothamist Model

Portrait of Samuel Rowbotham

In his 1865 book Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe, Rowbotham wrote:

Although the Sun is at all times above and parallel to the Earth's surface, he appears to ascend the firmament from morning until noon, and to descend and sink below the horizon at evening. This arises from a simple and everywhere visible law of perspective.

This was the birth of flerfspective: the butchered mess that flerfs make of linear perspective, even to this day, when explaining sunset, hull down ships, and a variety of other phenomena.

Rowbotham needed this on his model, which he called the Zetetic model, because of time zones. To make a flat earth “work” in the modern word, Samuel Rowbotham had co-opted the azimuthal equidistant world map projection with the North Pole at the center. His sun supposedly traveled in circles overhead around the North Pole.

World map drawn by Rowbotham